Saudi Arabia’s public debt climbs $6.8 billion

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s public debt increased SR25.5 billion ($6.8 billion) in the third quarter of this year, reflecting a growth rate over the period of 2.8 per cent, Arab News reported.

The total debt now stands at SR948.3 billion, the recent quarterly budget performance report revealed.

The increase was almost solely due to the growth in domestic debt, which grew by SR25.3 billion to SR560.6 billion. This represented 99 per cent of the total rise.

External debt was little changed, rising by only SR0.19 billion.

Public debt is expected to be 30.2 per cent of GDP for 2021, according to the Ministry of Finance’s projections in its pre-budget statement, which was published on 30 September.

This is set to rise to 31.3 per cent of GDP in 2022, equating to SR989 billion.

Year-to-date (YTD), public debt jumped SR94.8 billion in 2021, compared to the stronger rise in the same period a year earlier when it leaped by SR169.8 billion due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s increase was slightly less than the SR95.6 billion rise for the comparable period in 2019, according to previous budget performance reports.

Domestic debt data shows a YTD rise of SR57.9 billion in 2021 while for the previous two years, this increase was SR124.8 billion and SR54.9 billion respectively.

Additionally, external debt recorded an increase of SR36.9 billion YTD this year. This was less than the comparable figures recorded for 2020 and 2019 when they grew by SR45 billion and SR40.8 billion respectively.

Compared to the previous quarter, financing expenses were down by SR892 million in this year’s third quarter to SR6.5 billion.

Financing expenses amounted to SR19.7 billion for the first 3 quarters, 17.1 per cent higher than financing expenses in the previous year’s comparable period, according to the ministry’s recent and previous reports.

Financing expenses for the 9-month period ending in September 2021 were 26.6 per cent greater than expenses for the first three quarters of 2019.